


Day 23: Stargazing – Anticip...

by 221b_hound



Series: Techienician: Botanical Love [24]
Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 30 Days of Techienician, M/M, Revenge, Stargazing, Techienician
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-22
Updated: 2016-09-22
Packaged: 2018-08-16 18:58:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8113765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: Jex and Parvinak went too far when they locked Matt out on the skin of The Finalizer. The results were not at all what they expected. Worse still, some of those results have not yet come to pass. Because Techie is a patient man.





	

Jex knows they went too far this time. Parvinak knows it too.

The reason that they know they went too far is twofold.

One. They are up on charges of reckless endangerment of a crewmember’s life.

Two. Nothing else bad has happened yet.

It doesn’t matter that Matt Hugon seemed unconcerned by the fact his idiot workmates had locked him outside for six hours. Hugon was one of those types who didn’t get freaked out by being on the skin of the Finalizer, working on the radar housings. The gaping, cold canopy of space that spun out to infinity beyond his environment suit didn’t frighten him.

Jex and Parvinak hadn’t known that, when they closed the airlock and bolted it shut, leaving Matt Hugon attached to the Finalizer by a tieline and mag boots. They’d intended to wait until Matt was pleading to be let back inside and banging on the hatch with a grav-spanner, and then tease him for getting scared.

But Matthew Hugon, Radar Technician, did not get frightened by the vast cavity of space that simultaneously opened into forever and pressed down on you, out there on the surface of their ship.

Instead, that radar tech secured himself by the hatch, reported the situation – hatch closed and locked, re-entry not possible due to a fault – and then reported on his projected oxygen levels not only to the ops observers (Jex and Parvinak) but to Maintenance and Security. And then he patched himself through to his bloody little CompTech boyfriend to kill time while waiting for the M&S team to fix the problem.

Well, by then, Jax and Parvinak could hardly admit it had been a joke. _Ha ha. How funny are we?_ So they manually created a cascade of _actual_ airlock faults and stood by to watch M &S work unravel the mess. It took much longer than either idiot had anticipated - _six hours!_ \- and by then they'd built up a cold sweat and an array of nervous tics.

Just as well that slow and methodical Matt Hugon only ever went skinside with his suit fully checked and functional, his oxygen tanks full, the emergency spares full and attached. He had at least 12 hours of life support.

From time to time, Leslee broke in on Matt’s discussion with his boyfriend to see how he was going. Whether he was keeping calm.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Matt had said, five and a half hours in, voice calm as you please. Warm, even. _Amused_ , even. “Techie’s keeping me company. He’s naming all the stars for me.”

When Leslee patched the conversation into the workroom audio, that’s indeed what they heard. Computer Technician Techie, who was apparently sharing the visual feed from Hugon’s helmet, was telling Hugon stories.

“The little red star, four degrees off that blue pulsar. That’s the tip of the lightsaber of the Jedi’s Salute.”

“I don’t know that constellation,” Matt had replied. “Are you making it up?”

They all heard the comptech giggle. “Yes.”

Matt’s laughter, so rarely heard on the workfloor, rolled out into the room. “Tell me a story about it.”

So Techie made up a story about a Jedi constellation. He and Matt were quiet for a moment after, then Techie hummed a bit of a popular song about the stars spelling out a love letter, which Matt sang along with.

“You okay, Matt?” Techie had asked at the end, worry colouring his voice for the first time.

“I’m fine,” Matt replied, “You’re here with me.”

A few minutes after that, Matt was inside and his boyfriend was shoving people aside regardless of rank as he ran through to him. His arms were around Matt’s suit, holding tight, until Matt took off his helmet and kissed Techie’s forehead. “Thanks,” Matt said.

And then Techie had turned, holding Matt’s gloved hand, and looked right at Jax and Parvinak. Unblinking. Unforgiving.

General Phasma in her hardest moods has never glared at anyone on her ship as implacably as that mech-eyed, close-mouthed, tricky little computer tech was looking at them right then.

Of course it didn’t take long for M&S to work out what had gone wrong and to report those two idiots for a practical joke that might have gone horribly wrong.

Now, two days later, it’s not the upcoming disciplinary hearing that has Jax and Parvinak worried. There’ll be punishment for it. Demotion maybe. Time in the brig, perhaps.

But all of that, they’ll see coming.

What scares them is that it has been two days and nothing else has happened.

It’s coming. Of course it’s coming. They know about subtly shifted screen icons. They know about muffins laced with salt or laxatives. They know about stink-lizards in their salads and booby-trapped locker doors that spray them with purple berry juice that won’t wash out of their skin and hair for days.

But this time, they locked Matt Hugon on the lip of the maw of space and tried to frighten him, and could have hurt him, and too late they remembered that whatever they do to Matt Hugon comes back on them tenfold.

And every time Computer Technician Techie or Radar Technician Hugon see either Jex or Parvinak, they just give those two idiot jokers a hard, implacable look.

 _How?_ Jex and Parvinak ask themselves. _How is he going to get even? What’s he going to do? **Why hasn’t he done it yet?**_

*

“What have you got planned?” Matt asks Techie.

Techie grins. It’s a wicked grin. “You in a hurry?”

Matt laughs. “No. And anyway. I think I know.” He kisses Techie on the lips, on the nose. “We’re not going to do anything. We’re just going to let them think we are.”

“Stress testing,” agrees Techie. “I’ll just keep glaring at them. And then…”

“And then?”

“I’m going to leave a perfectly ordinary muffin in their lockers.”

Matt hugs Techie close. He huffs happiness against Techie’s ear, sucks on the lobe and says, “Tell me another story about the stars.”

 

 


End file.
